US Court Orders Apple to Pay $500 Million over PanOptis 4G Patent Violations

Intellectual Property RightsNewsPatent    August 14, 2020
Patent Violations Posted On

A Texas court has quite recently ordered the American multinational technology company, Apple Inc., to pay even more than $500 million, near about Rs. 3, 742 crores, in damages and interest for 4G Patent Violations held by Intellectual Property (IP) Company PanOptis.

According to the local media, the US tech giant – now worth almost $2 trillion (roughly Rs. 1, 49, 70,000 crores) has vowed to appeal this decision.

In an email response, Apple thanked the jury for their time and also expressed how disappointed it is with the court’s verdict. The company said that it has plans to appeal the court’s decision. The tech giant believes that lawsuits like the one in question by companies who accumulate patents to harass the industry serve only to harm the customers and stifle innovation in general.

PanOptis, a company specializing in licensing patents, took Apple to court in February 2019 by claiming that the US tech giant refused to pay for the use of 4G LTE technologies in its watches, tablets, and smartphones. According to the court filing, PanOptis did make a lot of effort repeatedly to reach an agreement with Apple for a FRAND license over its infringed upon Patent Portfolios. FRAND is an acronym for fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms and refers to the IT industry standard for technology use. PanOptis said that the negotiations proved to be unsuccessful as Apple refused to pay a FRAND royalty to its patent license. Apple, on the contrary, said that the patents were invalid according to the legal publications.

This case is one of the many Patent Infringement lawsuits filed by the licensing companies that make no products of their own but do hold the rights to several technologies.

In the past, the Texas court has ruled twice against Apple by demanding it to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to VirnetX, which is another company specializing in Patent Litigation.

On its official website, PanOptis offers services corresponding to managing its clients’ patents by allowing them to concentrate well on new development and innovation. For more visit: https://www.kashishipr.com/ 

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